In a surprise announcement, Edgar Wright has left Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man” as its director, the company said Friday.

Marvel is zeroing in on a new filmmaker, but is not yet in negotiations with one yet, Variety can confirm. When announcing Wright’s departure, Marvel said “a new director will be announced shortly.”

Hollywood and Marvel’s fan community will be scratching its head for awhile over this one, considering Wright has been attached to “Ant-Man” since 2006 — before the first “Iron Man” film — as a screenwriter. He has regularly gone to San Diego Comic-Con to give updates on the project’s development, and even showed test footage in 2012 of his approach to bringing the size-shifting character to the bigscreen.

Marvel and Wright parted ways “due to differences in their vision of the film,” the company and director said in a statement.

The decision to move on is amicable, they added, and does not impact the release date of July 17, 2015. The film had originally been dated for Nov. 6, 2015.

In addition to helming, Wright also co-wrote the script with Joe Cornish (“Attack the Block”). Wright most recently directed the comedy “The World’s End,” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead” before that.

Cornish could conceivably take over the project, given his close involvement with it over the years.

He had been considered for “Star Trek 3″ but opted for Universal’s spy thriller “Section 6,” set to star Jack O’Connell, instead. Film revolves around the formation of British intelligence agency MI6.

Marvel is developing “Ant-Man” as a potential new franchise as part of its third phase of films, the way it hopes to introduce the characters in “Guardians of the Galaxy” in August to hopefully appear in multiple movies.

In the comicbooks, Ant-Man is the alter-ego of biochemist Hank Pym, who uses subatomic particles to create a size-altering formula and when tests go awry, realizes he can also communicate with and control insects. The character eventually pairs up with the Avengers.

Director Edgar Wright and Marvel have found themselves in an awkward situation. After eight years of development, Wright left Marvel's Ant-Man production due to creative differences and script changes. Wright has been silent on the matter since it all went down, but over the weekend he tweeted a photo of legendary silent film star Buster Keaton holding a Cornetto ice cream bar. It came along with the description, "Selfie." The photo was quickly deleted, but there's no erasing something from the Internet.

The photo is said to represent Keaton’s comments from 1928. Keaton made 31 films independently, then signed on with MGM, which he said was the biggest mistake of his career. The director was never again able to create independent work. This is his exact quote:

"I made the worst mistake of my career. Against my better judgment I let Joe Schenck talk me into giving up my own studio to make pictures at booming Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot in Culver City."

It's not that hard to connect the dots. Wright is Keaton and Marvel in MGM in this situation. Unlike Keaton though, Wright will be able to get back into making the films he wants to make. He's not being forced by the studio to make movies he doesn't want to make.

I hate that we won't see Wright's vision of Ant-Man on the big screen. Hopefully Marvel knows what they're doing with the story they want to tell. The question is: is what they want to do with the story so important that it's worth losing an amazing director?

Somewhat agree....but I do wish they would allow more visionary directors like Wright into their system. I can't argue with their success. They have a system and it works for them.

The rumor is they rewrote his script with a couple of in house guys and he was pissed. He's worked on this film for years.

So I ask, why did Marvel hire him in the first place knowing full well how he operates?

They had Ang Lee. I don't think they're going to want to go down the 'visionary' road and let the directors run wild again anytime soon. On the other side of the equation, I think Iron Man 2 taught them about being too involved. Those two movies seem to have taught them valuable lessons and guided their approach moving forward.